Peter Gillette likes to read and write and play the trumpet and listen. Peter lives in Iowa City, and this is his blog.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

I'm defiantly blogging.

I'm a TA for the University of Iowa's massive "Great Musicians" class, and I've been doing a whole pile of grading of concert reports lately. (For those of you outside of UI, "Great Musicians" is our local, anachronistic euphemism for music appreciation.)

There's one malapropism that I've been seeing everywhere lately. I wonder where it comes from, or if this is always a frequent switcheroo:

Defiantly subbing in for definitely.

I remember trying to dabble in a typewriter a few summers back. I understood how my spelling had slipped a bit. With "defiantly," however, instead of "definitely," you can end up with some pretty hilarious sentences.

"The band defiantly worked hard on this music."

Yeah! Take that conductor!

I'm not by any means a grammar snob--I'm wondering if there's some way we pronounce things, and if that somehow leads to the mistakes? I wouldn't be making light of this if just one person did it. It's a bona fide grammatical crime spree!

Kidding. Okay, back to grading/medieval polyphony/listening to Radiohead and then realizing that it's making my medieval transcription very difficult. Then I turn off my Itunes, and realize... that my medieval transcription is still very difficult. Then I grade some more, set my media player to shuffle, feel guilty for not transcribing, and start the whole mess over again.

And now, in T-Spoons, I'm defiantly blogging about the whole cycle. Like, whoa.